“Masters! Masters!” I wept.
I plunged, and spun and slid downward. I was in utter darkness. The tube tended to spiral. Sometimes the descent was relatively slow, and sometimes it was more precipitous. After a little I was gasping, buffeted and weeping, seemingly struck from one side to another. I tried to catch my breath. I wept. I do not know how long the descent took. Doubtless it did not take long, but sometimes it seemed as though it would never end. There was the darkness, the movement, the terror. It is difficult to judge time in such matters. Then I felt myself plunge into a stout, yielding, reticulated surface. Closely meshed cords were now all about me. They were tight. I swung back and forth. The device had been closed, it seemed, by my weight.
12
I swung back and forth.
About me the cords were tight. It was dank in this place, and utterly dark.
I lay very quietly in the cords, moving only a little to change my position, to twist a bit to my side, to ease the attitude of my bound limbs.
I could see so little that I might as well have been hooded.
I thought I heard, several feet below me, a movement, as though in water.
I was apparently in a net of some sort. With my thigh, and my shoulder, pressing against it, and with my fingers, behind me, I tried to ascertain its nature. It was a stout net. Its cords were perhaps a half inch in thickness. It would doubtless have served to confine something much larger, much heavier and stronger than I.On the other hand, the cords were not coarse. I, or things such as I, would not likely to be burned or cut in it, even if we struggled. It was not woven of those terrible ropes, sometimes used in punishment ties, in which a disobedient slave might find herself swathed from head to foot, ropes within which, in misery, she scarcely dares to move. Its mesh was apparently woven in a regular pattern, either of diamonds or squares, I suppose, depending on one’s axis of viewing it. The sides of these regular diamonds, or aligned squares, were some four inches in length. This mesh was thus capable not only of holding things of my size, and larger, but also things which might be considerably smaller. The softness of the cords doubtless had to do with the fact that some of the net’s catches might be expected to be such as I. I did not think particular consideration would be shown, say, to male prisoners. Our prettiness, obviously, tends to figure in our value. We are seldom, if ever, marked unless there is a purpose to it, as, say, when we are put under the hot iron and branded, say for purposes of identification. It is thought to be stupid to gratuitously mark a slave. Such things may lower her value. Even the dreaded five-bladed slave whip is designed in such a way as to avoid marking the slave in permanent fashion. One need not fear any lessening in discipline, of course, for there is, well within the parameters of protecting the master’s investment, more than enough, far more than enough, I assure you, and from personal experience, which may be done with us. Perhaps a brief remark on nets might be order. I was now enclosed, it seemed, in a general-purpose net, one of a sort which might serve many purposes, perhaps even the transfer of supplies from one side of a chasm to another, or cargo from one ship to another in a net of the soft in which I was now enclosed, it is easy to inspect the contents, to see what is held. This is different from many slave nets, which are often so closely woven that one can scarcely put one’s fingers though the mesh. The point of such nets seems to be to impress on the slave her helplessness, and, as well, to excite the curiosity of passers-by, say, prospective buyers or such, as to the nature of its contents. Similarly some auctioneers like to bring women to the block clothed, which vesture may then, as the bidding intensifies, be pregressively removed. There is also a variety of capture nets, designed with different animals in mind. I confine myself to those which are designed to net slaves. To be sure, they function quite effectively with free women, as well, who, it must be noted, unless surprised in the boudoir or bath, are often impeded by the cumbersome robes of concealment. Interestingly the very robes which are supposed to discourage predation upon them render them more vulnerable to it. Accordingly, ironically, in a given situation, a lightly clad slave, in her fleetness, might elude a captor to whom a free woman would fall easily. And when the “free woman” is capable of matching the slave’s flight, she, too, perhaps being then bedecked in less inhibiting garmenture, it will be too late for her, for, by that time, she, too, will be a slave. The nets I have in mind then are capture nets designed for the taking of slaves, or, perhaps better, more generally, women. They are light, easily cast and weighted. They are commonly circular, with a diameter of some eight to ten feet. The cords are commonly of silk and the mesh is normally fastened in diamonds or squares, some two inches, or so, in width. They swirl, twisting, though the air. It is like a sudden, odd cloud come between you and the sun. One is first aware of the reticulated shadow which seems to descend and then one has it all about one. One is suddenly caught. Usually one is running, and, in an instant, one falls, tangled, helpless. Sometimes one leaps up, only to find it all about one. One tries to tear it away. One forces it in one direction to be the more helplessly grasped by it in another. Then, commonly one falls, or one’s feet may be kicked away, from beneath one. One looks up through the mesh and sees one’s captor. In an instant then one may find the net secured about one, tied closed. One is its prisoner. Or one may be pulled from the net, and bracelted, or secured as the captor wishes. It is up to him, as you are then his. I have suggested that the slave, given her garmenture, is more likely to elude a captor then a free woman, which is surely true, but it is necessary to add that it is, of course, a relative matter, and one of degree. Neither the slave nor the free woman has much hope once, in a suitable situation, the hunter-has decided upon her. We are smaller than he. We are weaker then they, we are less swift than they. It is thus that we find our place, and have our place, in the design of nature, whatever may be her mysterious purposes. Nets are, of course, buy one way of acquiring women. Looped ropes, for example, are extremely common. Bolas are not unknown, too. Indeed, in the southern hemisphere, I understand that they are extremely common. I think I would fear to be taken by such a thing, it whipping about my legs, pinning them together. More cruelly the women is sometimes stunned by a throwing stick, a method which is used, I have heard, in a place called the delta of the Vosk. The Vosk, I gather, is a body of flowing water, a stream, or river. Similarly, chains, hoods, and such, too, have their purposes.